Definition of "subdominant" []

• Music The fourth tone of a diatonic scale, next below the dominant. (noun)
• Zoology Less than dominant; ranking below one that is dominant: the subdominant male in a pride of lions. (adjective)
• Ecology Prevalent in a community but below the dominant in importance. Used of a species. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The IV chord, also called the subdominant, is a chord built on the fourth tone of the scale, in our example, a B-flat."
• ""Epiphany" is pretty extravagantly lovely for a hymn; check out those strong-beat double non-harmonic tones in the third bar, like cheese melting onto the sirloin burger of subdominant substitutions."
• "That afternoon, I ... ... staked a subdominant buck decoy about 15 yards off the stand in a small opening in the otherwise thick hedge pasture, then climbed up to my perch."